What do you call it when someone steals someone else’s money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else’s money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else’s money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice. — Thomas Sowell, Random Thoughts
OK, Christmas is Over…
…back to the depressing, pessimistic stuff again. 😉
First, watch this:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU?rel=0]
Trust me, if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth your time.
OK? Now, watch this:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG7F9G4AEak?feature=player_embedded]
Both are examples of large numbers of people performing coordinated acts. The first is, in a word, beautiful.
The second, frankly, creeps me the hell out.
The first required literally weeks, months, and in the case of the organist, years of practice to make that performance come off. The second? Merely required a bunch of willing minions.
Human beings, for the most part, are herd creatures. We have, as a species, a need to belong to something, to be a member.
It’s something I personally don’t do well. I don’t really grasp it. I’ve been asked several times why, if I like firearms so much, didn’t I join the military? Simple – I wouldn’t fit in, and I know it. Or I would, but I’d hate every second of it, which is essentially the same thing.
I watch hundreds, perhaps a couple thousand people doing what some disembodied voice tells them to do in a public park, and I cannot understand why. Yet I can understand the group performance of the Hallelujah Chorus. One is an exercise in mind-control. The other, an act of beauty.
But at the bottom, they both make use of the human need to belong.
And I cannot help but wonder if that voice had told those “two tribes” to kill each other, if some would not have tried it without thinking…
Yes, Bethany, There is a Santa Clause
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP_zR-Z-NdQ?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Merry Christmas, Everyone
Another one from Digital Blasphemy.
A Christmas Present from Bill Whittle
Give ’em Hell, Bill:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWmsoAP-HoE?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
Grandma Got Indefinitely Detained
From the folks at Reason:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek1uqrwLmQk?rel=0]
In October of 2008, when I asked Rev. Donald Sensing if he still believed what he wrote in 2003, that:
When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free.
The demise of freedom in this country has accelerated even faster than I imagined back in 2003.—
The only difference between the outcomes of McCain’s or Obama’s presidency is how quickly they will accelerate the robbery of the people’s rights, not whether they will.
No argument here.
Oh, and I am TJIC. I guess that makes me a domestic terrorist now?
Quote of the Day – One Can But Hope Edition
From The Corruption of America, linked yesterday:
What gives me confidence for the future? Gun sales, for one thing. U.S. citizens legally own around 270 million firearms – about 88 guns per 100 citizens (including children) today.That’s a hard population to police without its consent. America is the No. 1 country in the world as ranked by the number of guns per-capita. That plays a major factor in the kind of government you will see take root in America. Things might go too far in this country for a while… And I’d argue they’ve been going the wrong way for too long. But the government can only take things so far before they’ll be faced with a very angry, well-armed opposition.If the government attempts to take our guns… my opinion would change immediately. But that’s one right the Supreme Court has been strengthening recently. It gives me hope that most people in America still understand that the right to bear arms has little to do with protecting ourselves from crime and everything to do with protecting ourselves from government…
RTWT. I mean it.
If You Read Nothing Else This Weekend…
…read The Corruption of America by Porter Stansberry. It’s an überpost, and it’s pretty much a distillation of what I’ve been writing here since 2003, but it’s absolutely worth your time.
Pullquote:
The situation destabilized the entire city. Most of the people who could afford to leave did. Over the next 18 months, 140,000 upper- and middle-class residents – almost all of them white – left the city.
And so, you might ask… after five years of centralized planning, higher taxes, and a fleeing population, what did the government decide to do with its grand experiment? You’ll never guess…
I would. “The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only HARDER!“
Tough history coming, indeed.
Thomas Sowell: “What are they Buying?”
I’ve begun reading Thomas Sowell’s Dismantling America, a collection of his short pieces. I just finished “What are they Buying?” and wanted to share it with you. Here it is in video. It’s absolutely worth your 4:45.
http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf
Pullquote:
What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in — power.
If you’re running an Apple product, the YouTube link is: http://youtu.be/8GWtJcPjxvE
What HE Said
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother blogging anymore. Mostly Cajun says exactly what I would have, only better because he did it in a lot fewer words.